🚀 Week 8 by the Numbers

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Investor Members: 8 (+3)

🏓 Times I got to play ping pong for work: 1

🤝 Newsletter Subscribers: 263 (+34)

Pitch Session One

Things are gearing up for our first pitch session on May 1st, and I’m not only pleased with the opportunities to be presented, but also with the volume of alumni founders I’ve been meeting! I plan to host another pitch session less than two months after our first.

We have an awesome pipeline of Alumni founders, student founders, and Venture Partners startups.

Before then, we’re aiming to hit 10+ investor members to continue our trend of 4 new members per month. The Boulder Angels empire is inevitable!

Member Spotlight: Jack Terranova

This week I’m taking a break from my VC musings to share about the world’s best terminal condition, and about someone who has contracted it.

Becoming a Buff is a terminal diagnosis. Once you graduate from CU Boulder, there is nothing you can do to not be a Buff anymore. You are a forever Buff.

Of course, being a Buff doesn’t shorten your lifespan, and might even lengthen it (long live Peggy), but it is forever. However, everyone who is a Buff will end up dying, so we can’t technically rule out its lethality.

Anyways… Today I want to highlight one of our Boulder Angels members, Jack Terranova, who has only been infected with terminal Buff condition for around 2 years, finishing his evening MBA at CU Boulder in 2023.

Jack’s story doesn’t start during his time at Tulane University, but in this newsletter it does.

Jack studied Finance at Tulane, and had the opportunity to join Maxim Group as an intern his senior year. He was then given a position with them full-time during 2008 and 2009, and had a chance to witness and learn from all of the craziness of the time.

He started in fixed income trading, but then pivoted to investment banking a year later. After around 7 years in equity capital markets in the healthcare space, he had the opportunity to go to Oppenheimer & Co. to help build out their healthcare IB practice from the ground up.

Working in the space all the way through Covid, the group at Oppenheimer did great. Jack relocate with his wife to Denver in 2019 after getting married.

In 2022, Jack saw his first opportunity to personally invest in a booming technology, and along with his brothers and father, they started up 44 West Mining, a bitcoin mining company based in Wyoming.

Jack then enrolled in CU Boulder’s evening MBA program, graduating in 2023 with a diploma, lifelong friendships, and a forever Buff diagnosis.

Now, Jack has once again successfully helped to head up a new healthcare IB practice at Jones Trading, and has begun his angel investing journey to give back and become a more engaged member of the Buff and Boulder community.

Making Deals

Jack’s specialty is investments in healthcare, specifically drug development and biotech, as well as investments in the crypto space.

As someone highly experienced in these spaces, Jack mentions:

“Great founders that demonstrate an understanding of the drug development process with is always more important than the asset (the IP) itself. The current M&A landscape affects things greatly as well for types of drugs to invest in.”

With the right investment, Jack will be an immense help for any founder hoping to gain an understanding the M&A/financial landscape of healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and crypto.

Favorite memory from being a buff?

“CU’s first football game with Coach Prime against Nebraska. I was excited to get a ticket, but didn’t realize I had accidentally bought a ticket in the Nebraska section until I got to the game.”

Thankfully, the Cornhuskers did not see Jack as a piece of corn, and he is around to tell the tale.

Giving Back

I am grateful to have Jack as a member because he really cares about the Buff and Boulder/Colorado community. Like other angel investors, an ROI is the ultimate goal, but there can be so much positive local impact created on the road to returns.

“Being tied into the Boulder and Buff community is great. I want to see smart people stay in Boulder and commercialize tech here, instead of moving away to Silicon Valley, or the East coast. In supporting founders and investing alongside other Buffs I can help to accomplish that.”

Now What?

Jack is one of our 8 members, and 12+ total investors who will be joining us for our pitch session on May 1st.

If you are an angel investor, founder, or community member who wants to get involved, reach out to me anytime or through our website.

Boulderangels.org

[email protected]

Until next time,

-H